Marantz SR5300

ace2109 · 25 Jun 2011 at 17:33

Hi Guys,
I was looking at ways to improve my current setup and a few months back someone recommended a preamp to drive my front left and right speakers?

I was just wondering if this would make a noticeable difference to my setup?

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

lucid · 25 Jun 2011 at 22:42

I doubt a extra pre-amp would make any improvement. The issue still remains that you'd be running the new pre-amp output in to the Marantz to get the power to drive the speakers. The result is the same. The signal goes through the AV amp. Even with source direct and as much of the AV processing switched off as possible the signal path still won't be as clean as a dedicated stereo hi-fi amp.

What you need to do is bypass the AV amp altogether for your CD and other analogue Hi-Fi sources.

You are lucky. Your AV amp has pre-outs. You can use these to drive a stereo hi-fi amp to run the front L&R channel speakers.

Ezah · 26 Jun 2011 at 04:47

Lucid,

Thanks for the above, its very helpful.
Just a question, I have my AVR and speakers setup via Audessey.. If I introduced the stereo amp as you show, would this still work or would I have to do it by ear?

cheers

lucid · 26 Jun 2011 at 13:22

Ezah said:
Lucid,

Thanks for the above, its very helpful.
Just a question, I have my AVR and speakers setup via Audessey.. If I introduced the stereo amp as you show, would this still work or would I have to do it by ear?

cheers

I think you'll have to try it.

FWIW I've always had the best results setting up with the speakers in the right places.. or as close as possible... and then using tones off a test disc and with a dB meter.

Audessey is clever technology but, IMO, dumbed down too far to make set-up "easy" rather than accurate.

Ezah · 26 Jun 2011 at 15:32

Thanks. not having a db meter and setup discs I did use Audessey but found that I needed to tweak the levels after. No issue with delays.

I do have an unused marantz PM-54SE. Do you think it would be worth using for 2 x MA RX8s? With the Denon 2311 managing the rest of the speakers?

cheers

lucid · 26 Jun 2011 at 23:53

RX8s are very capable speakers. I'd be very surprised if you hooked up the 54 and didn't hear an improvement with stereo music. Give it a try. Just remember to feed the analogue music sources to the 54 rather than through 2311.